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Re: A Loong Light--Maybe

Ti anodized colors are pretty limited, but predictable. A rendering really does no justice to the actual colors, however.

Even with no anodizing, the light would look fine, I think.

I would expect to sell this for around $800-$900 dollars. While it looks pretty basic, and easy to make, the drilling on the interior, long and skinny, isn't the easiest to achieve--it just takes time and patience.

Re: A Loong Light--Maybe

Might as well make this a WIP thread, too.

Although after that nice rendering, these photos probably won't be as attractive.

So far, I've bored out the battery tube enough to accept the 14680 battery, but I haven't done the McClicky switch bore and threading yet. The threading was done on both the top of the battery tube and the head, so the pieces do fit together:

The discs have been cut on the battery tube, but not the grooves, since the discs will be anodized in gold, at a higher voltage than the blue colored grooves.

The head, on which only the discs will be anodized, had both the discs and axial grooves cut at the same time. The axial grooves will be masked off when the discs are being anodized.

The bevel will be machined after the battery tube is completely done--in order to match up the diameter of the battery tube with the diameter of the narrower portion of the head bevel.

Re: A Loong Light--Maybe

Re: A Loong Light--Maybe

Since this is a spec light, not one promised to a customer, I can take my time on this one.

Today, I did find a little time to work on it, though. I decided to anodize the discs, so all I had to do was to mask off the one groove that I had cut near the tail of the light and crank up the voltage in the anodizing electrolyte, until I got the gold color I wanted:

Once the discs were anodized, I just cut the grooves, which, while they look as though they could already be anodized blue, are really just the bare Ti.

The grooves will be anodized next in blue.

For now, this is a pic of the two pieces together:

In case you are wondering what happens to the gold on the surface of the light--that will be further machined--just take a skim coat off to reveal the bare Ti once again.

Re: A Loong Light--Maybe

A little more work today. First I masked off the flutes on the head, in preparation for anodizing the discs blue, which would be done simultaneously with the anodizing of the thin grooves on the battery tube.

Here's what they looked like after anodizing and the removal of the masking:

Not very pretty yet, eh?

Next operation was to cut the flutes in the tail area:

Once the flutes were cut, I skimmed the gold anodizing off the battery tube, and then screwed the pieces together:

If you look closely, you'll see a boo-boo on the fluted tail end--evidently I was in a bit of a rush to get the piece off the collet and to clean it up, but I managed instead to put a good gauge in it.

Fortunately, there's enough metal there to turn it down and clean it up.

And here's a close-up of the battery tube's discs and grooves:

Still a little masking compound lurking in the discs--they will be cleanly thoroughly later.

Re: Ti Triple L -- a little, long light

I stand corrected on the battery--it just measures 68mm. It is, in fact, an AW14670 battery--thanks DM51.

J.J.: Yes, you can have the next one.

fyrstormer: There are always mistakes made--but at least for this light, it was very well hidden--on the inside near the McClicky switch--I had a little chatter going on when I was cutting the O-ring groove.